I was disappointed by Trump to be honest. David Cassidy was bullied on the show. First by Hatch and then verbally by Trump. It was so clear to me that David was going to be fired but he was also demeaned because he is smaller in stature than Jose and Hatch and that was also used against him. People on Apprentice need to speak up and if it means talking over someone then they need to do it because otherwise Trump will run over you with a steamroller. Trump kept Richard for the drama and controversy. I get it, I just didn't like how the firing was handled.

That said, I thought the guys did much better with their pizza store. They were happy, the customers were happy while the women closed their store early. They also failed to make their deliveries which cost them $35,000.

I hope the season gets better. I wish Trump would not start the infighting when the teams are in the board room way before either side is told who actually won.

This fourth season of Celebrity Apprentice opened with Donald Trump greeting the 16 celebrities at Radio City Music Hall. He announced that men versus women has proven to be the most cut-throat and interesting format and that Don Jr. and Ivanka will be his Boardroom Advisors. He told the teams to go back to their quarters and develop a name and choose their first Project Manager (P.M.). The men chose Backbone, the women chose Artists, Singers and Authors with a Purpose (ASAP), which Marlee Matlin embellished with its sign language. She had her own interpreter Jeb to help her "hear" and to "talk" back. Richard Hatch volunteered to be the P.M. and someone nominated Star Jones, she was approved unanimously and agreed to that responsibility. Typically the first Celebrity Apprentice project is the riskiest because other teammates have not been calibrated yet, but the money brought in is much larger than other episodes until the semifinals. Richard's charity was Grass Roots Soccer, created by another Survivor winner Ethan Zohn who came to draw a crowd for Backbone as did David Cassidy's daughter, a current star on Gossip Girls.

Both teams returned to the Boardroom to learn that their project was to make and sell pizza. ASAP was offered a choice of a midtown theater district location at 50th Street and 8th Avenue while Backbone got one near NYU in Greenwich Village. Each team was given a delivery vehicle. Richard Hatch immediately made an executive decision that Backbone would not deliver as far north as midtown. It was clear that calling in favors from everyone the team members knew in New York City would be key to maximizing their revenue, so both teams started out on phones working their Rolodex files. They were also given training in all phases of pizza production from making the dough, rolling the dough, weighing a dough ball, smearing tomato sauce, adding cheese and toppings, working the pizza oven and cutting the finished pizza.

Conflicts arose quickly on Backbone. Richard's leadership was a bit dictatorial and this did not sit well with his teammates. In particular, Richard cut David off twice, lightly brushing him with his arm, which was witnessed in brooding silence by Jose Canseco. Star was a little more collegial, but she did not appreciate alternate viewpoints, particularly from Lisa Rinna. Lisa did not voice her opinions except to the camera, about the worthlessness of Star's printed small posters. The primary division of responsibilities was most of the time as follows:Cashier - Meat Loaf; Dionne Warwick (who was just plain slow but would not allow Star to replace her)Pizza Prep - Jose and David; ? for womenPizza Chef - ? for men; Nikki TaylorMarketing - John Rich (effective with his guitar), Lil Jon, Gary Busey (who donned a costume and became the Pepperoni Prophet); Star Jones Delivery - some of the above; Marlee and Lisa

Ivanka visited Backbone and Don Jr. visited ASAP, both finding teams working cohesively. Celebrity chef Curtis Stone was sent in to samle each pizza and choose a winner of "a substantial check." ASAP won this contest and Curtis told Star she had to deliver 8 pizzas to the Chelsea firehouse station to collect and be able to count that check. Star was running out of pizza raw materials and had gotten an order from a personal friend for 40 pizzas at $1000 each, which had delivery priority. She got that changed to a huge pizza for $40,000 and the delivery team got that done, but they could not reach the Chelsea firehouse in the 25 minutes before the time period for the contest expired.

The teams assembled in the Boardroom to submit to Donald Trump's probing questions designed to bring out interpersonal conflicts and find out who the best and worst contributors were and how the Project Managers were viewed by their teams. He quickly discovered conflict between David and Jose versus Richard over the physical contact and peremptive style issues. David had the unwanted focus on having taken frequent smoke breaks while other were working, although once it was also to call his daughter and invite her to come and support his team with a donation and her presence. The women got off easy. Star learned that the check she had not been able to capture was from Famiglia, the pizza chain in whose stores this contest had been held, for $35,000. Donald Trump termed this lost money "blown".

Trump then asked Ivanka to reveal the money brought in by Backbone, which was $54,104. ASAP brought in $115,868 even without the $35,000. It was clear that even without Star Jones' $40,000 pizza the women had raised enough to win. Star got the total of $171K for her charity the American Heart Association. She said she had life-saving open-heart surgery about 7 months before Celebrity Apprentice. I personally know how she feels, as the American Heart Association is the one charity I work on behalf of. Trump asked who Star felt was the best performer on ASAP. Without hesitation she said Nikki. Trump directed the $35,000 Famiglia check to Nikki's charity, the American Red Cross.

Next ASAP was excused to watch the closed circuit monitor in their quarters. It came down to Richard choosing Jose and David to join him in the Boardroom. Jose supported David and sort of acted as his shield. That had its problems, as Trump got the impression that David was a wimp, something Richard encouraged. Richard did apologize for having inadvertently touched David. Trump correctly inferred a major hatred between Jose and Richard, which would be good to continue in future episodes. Although in these situations the losing PM gets the boot, not here. Trump fired David Cassidy who basically said that overt demonstrations of macho is what Trump apparently wants.

The interesting question is whether the women "shot their wad" too soon by using up such high-value contacts when it wasn't really necessary to win (although you are shooting blind). I think they went overboard by not saving some of that money for later tasks. However, the counter-argument was provided by Trump firing a Playboy bunny in a previous season who refused to solicit Hugh Hefner.

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

Star Jones is shown delivering to her cardiologist a check for $169,732 that she won for the American Heart Association as the episode 1 winning PM.

Donald Trump assembled the teams to announce the next project, writing a book to be read by 4 and 5 year olds and presenting in a performance to a selected audience of them. The criteria for deciding which team wins was originality of the book, the on-stage performance and appropriateness to the target age group. The book had to be about one teams member. Backbone chose Meat Loaf as its PM and ASAP (with NeNe Leaskes stating on camera that this was a move to get rid of Lisa) chose Lisa Rinna. The judges were Holly Robinson-Peete and Marjorie Highland (who also served briefly as a consultant to both teams).

The teams dove in to share overall concepts. The men seemed to be able to share their ideas without pride of authorship getting in the way. The women had a battle between Dionne and Marlee over how advanced it should be on diversity and spotlighting sign language for deaf people. Some thought the concepts would be too advanced for 4/5 year olds. Hope, with several young children, expressed concern that the word "shy" is too advanced. Marlee pleaded with Lisa to "tell me what to do" and NeNe referred to Dionne essentially as a 70 year old autocrat. In the Boardroom later Trump asked Marlee if she regarded Dionne to be a music LEGEND. Marlee got the best line of the night with "I have no idea, Mr. Trump, I'm deaf." The focal point of the women's story was La Toya as The Lion in "Why can't I roar?" Don Jr. was concerned that this approach would get low originality marks due to similarity to The Wizard of Oz. Lisa failed to step in and settle these turf disputes, but later she did make a decision on not giving Dionne and Star credit on the cover. I think Lisa was right, but Star and Dionne continued sniping at her.

The women delegated writing of the book, selection of fonts and book graphics to Star Jones as they went off to gather and move props, get costumed and rehearse their performance. Lisa allowed Star to micromanage those the book. The story and graphics were fine, but the text was in tiny font not appropriate for children.

The men had primary contributions from John Rich (using his Country Western simple lyrics approach), Gary Busey and Mark McGrath. The focal point of their story was around Lil Jon. Jose was upset that his skills as an author had been completely ignored. Meat Loaf got incorrect information on where the proper place to deliver the props was, which annoyed Jose and Gary.

Eric visited Backbone and viewed conflict between Meat Loaf and Gary. Don Jr. visited ASAP and witnessed Dionne openly challenging Lisa's leadership. The key for Backbone was going to be Jose's ability to memorize and deliver his lines. Jose and Richard were costumed as females for comic relief.

The ASAP performance began with Donald Jr. and Eric in the audience with their families. ASAP had Lisa as narrator showing the pages of the book to the audience as she read it. This was very effective. Marlee was on stage doing the sign language version so that children would get some exposure to that. The women's performance was good in my opinion.

The men's performance was weaker, but the men's book was superior. Their theme had more impact on 4/5 year olds. Their fonts were large and easily readable. Their graphics were as good as the men. Plus, they had a more original concept. Still, it was not a slam-dunk on who won.

Trump played with several of the celebrities as the Boardroom started. NeNe stated that Lisa had no control over the group (true). Dionne said some important things were forgotten (but if so, she and Star were more responsible for that than Lisa). Star said that Lisa had a big voice and big attitude. Trump asked fewer questions of Backbone.

Trump announced that Backbone had won a major victory. The women had screwed up on using concepts not appropriate for 4/5 year olds and having a small font. The men had done some scary things like confetti at the end, but it was their book that won it for them. Meat Loaf was going to present $20,000 plus the profits from the men's book to his charity, Painted Turtle. The men were excused to watch the next segment of the boardroom from the comfort of their suite.

Marlee spoke up to support Lisa, but none of the others (Hope, Niki, LaToya) stepped up. Lisa selected the obvious Star and Dionne to join her in the final Boardroom. They came out swinging and she had a more restrained approach. Donald Trump pointed out that she was not making a strong case, as she seemed constrained by the realities. I believe he has no interest in those realities favoring a person's case if they they do not aggressively fight for it. Lisa was not doing so, so he fired her. I think Dionne should have gone home.

CELEBRITY APPRENTICE 4, Ep. 3Meat Loaf was shown presenting a check to his charity the Painted Turtle, which is a camp for seriously ill children.

This episode’s task was about the business Camping World to show off on adjacent outdoor plazas in Madison Square Park, New York City. The winning PM will get $20,000. There is a choice between a low-end and a high-end Recreational Vehicle (RV) or two mid-value RVs that could be customized with the available $5000 for that. Backbone nominated Gary Busey as PM for his charity Center for head Injury Services. ASAP nominated Niki Taylor as PM. The CEO of Camping World Marcus Lemonis would be judging teams on originality, brand messaging and overall presentation. Marcus is clear with the teams that this challenge is about promoting Camping World, not the RV lifestyle. The women claim they knew the guys would go with the larger RV, so they focused on ones that were more homey and family-oriented. The negotiation went smoothly as both teams got what they wanted.

There was dissension on Backbone between Gary and Lil John over the non-leadership style Gary is using. Jose is causing trouble and John Rich is trying to write a Camping World song to accompany their presentation to Marcus. Both teams visited Camping World’s outdoor store. The women were spending money on all sorts of interior décor, with one room the responsibility of each member of ASAP. The men left plenty of funds for their exterior space for trees, shrubs and Astro-Turf carpet. Gary nearly ran out of money by allowing Richard and Mark to duplicate their efforts and Gary had a convenient memory loss when Mark reminded him of his commitment on shrubs.

Gary did individualize his managerial approach to his teammates. Some of them saw this as anarchy, with no demonstrated leadership. Others went with the flow. Gary and Jose hung out together and played catch with baseball gloves and a hardball. When Gary was showing no leadership, John Rich carried a 150 pound generator that needed to be set up to its rightful place. It weighed almost as much as he does.

On ASAP the main issue was getting more interior décor purchased that night so it was all in place without scurrying the next morning. Niki directed where to go and what to buy, including balloons in a range of bright colors. Niki kept making the mistake of referring to a 20th century experience, not realizing that that took us back at least 11 years. When corrected, she got a laugh for: “This is the 21st century for a hundred years. It’s gonna be the 21st century for the rest of our lives!”

Ivanka showed up at the Backbone RV site and was told my Gary that his approach was LUCKY and “L-U-C-K-Y stands for Living Under Correct Knowledge Yearly.” The sad thing is that he really believes that. Niki came up with “it’s tough to have Star on your team” as her best line.

Don Jr. came to visit ASAP. Don asked if there were any issues with team members; Niki said no. Don asked if they don’t win, does that mean it’s Niki’s fault? Niki stated, “It’s probably my fault.” Don believed that the women are all together now, but when they come into the Boardroom it would be different. We’ll see. He next asked Marlee who was the weak link on ASAP. Marlee responded that Dionne has been hanging around and was not very proactive, doing only what she was asked to do. Niki had a minor run-in during the tour period with Dionne.

Entry to the site by the public was opened. Visitors could see that the women achieved their goal on interior décor, but they had almost no exterior decoration. Their signage was minimal and poorly positioned on the periphery of the space. Marcus came by for an inspection tour and he appreciated the product knowledge that LaToya had developed on her tour of the units back at Camping World headquarters.

The men had an outstanding exterior space, with comfortable chairs, Astro-Turf, trees and shrubs (Nikki was jealous because she had not thought of several of those). Their interior décor was rated as “what you get when you let men handle it.” Their signage was significant and well-positioned. They had John Rich out front on guitar performing his song.

Donald Trump got a private assessment from Marcus. He learned that ASAP had done great interiors but had poor signage and forgot about the exterior. For the men it was pretty much exactly the opposite. So which team won? As always, you must wait for The Donald to enlighten you.

Next it was Boardroom time. Trump went through his usual “how well did the PM do?” type of questions. It was clear that there were some negative opinions of both PMs. Lil Jon, Mark and Richard were all pretty vocal against Gary’s style of leadership. Gary says Marlee sent him to see her doctor, the head of the Hearing Foundation, who made him two hearing aids because apparently he was only able to use 40 percent of his hearing and he had been legally deaf because of the accident that caused his brain damage.

Trump asked about John’s song, so Meat Loaf went to get the guitar so John could play it for Trump. Trump asked Niki if, on hearing the song, it changes her assessment of the probability of ASAP victory. She said it didn’t. Star volunteered that it didn’t because ASAP was superior in brand messaging.

It’s getting late, so Trump finally has to reveal the winning team. It’s the men. Gary and team joyously retreat out of the Boardroom. Niki is left holding the bag. She actually deserved it because it was her decisions to minimize exterior décor and signage by not paying proper attention to them and spending all the money on interior décor. Although Dionne was available as a scapegoat, Niki was too decent to try to throw anyone under the bus. She stated that her entire team had worked hard and did what she asked them to. She elected to go down like the captain of a sinking ship, with great dignity. Trump admired that greatly, but he did have to fire her.

So far, the men have more fun with their tasks and even with bad managers they pull it out. I was touched by Gary being helped by Marlee because she recognized that he had a hearing problem and got him help.

Marlee looks like someone who has a lot of potential yet she flies under the radar. I look for her to emerge as one of the finalists this year.

This episode started with Gary Busey delivering a check from Donald Trump to Donna Gunning, head of the Center for Head Injury Services which had aided his recovery from a motorcycle accident head injury in 1988.

Trump introduced Gary Provinzano and Mike Cupisz of ACN, which is introducing its new videophone and wants Backbone and ASAP to develop a 30 second commercial which will act as product placement on the show. It is supposed to have high emotional content. It will be judged on originality/creativity, brand messaging and their presentation accompanying their commercial. Decisions on which one will win were to be made by a convention of 450 ACN executives. Trump asked who the PMs are. It was Lil John for the men and NeNe for the women. The winner will get $20,000 from Trump for their charity plus another $20,000 from ACN.

Lil Jon quickly established his objective of being cutting edge, taking risks and being “out of the box”. He was willing to forgo the emotional appeal to get big-time humor. The women took a more conventional approach using Marlee and Dionne to supplement the hired actors.

Delegation of tasks became an important measure of the PM’s achievement. NeNe has Hope and Dionne going for props, LaToya doing time-keeping and Marlee, Star and herself as the brain trust acting in, directing and doing the presentation of the commercial to the audience. At the start of the evening editing of the commercial, Dionne was tired and elected to leave without getting the approval of NeNe, although NeNe appeared happy to see her go. LaToya was criticized by NeNe for doing a poor job of time-keeping, although I could not verify that through the clips shown. It looked to me that NeNe just wanted to establish a scapegoat for the possibility that ASAP would lose.

The mens' commercial hinged on displaying a male gay relationship in Argentina and Jose was the designated comic with his single line “Hola.” It was truly over-the-top and made Lil John proud.

The presentation happened and NeNe greeted the audience, then turned it over to Star. For Backbone, Lil Jon handled both roles with aplomb. The ASAP commercial was truly very good and heartfelt. The Backbone commercial was everything Lil Jon hoped for and he emphasized its potential to go viral on the Internet. There was audience support for both, but of course Trump got the specifics of the vote and withheld it until after he could play with both teams.

In the boardroom, Backbone stood by their commercial and Lil Jon could not name any weak links nor would any of his team criticize him. ASAP fractured a little, with NeNe going after both LaToya and Dionne. LaToya vigorously defended that she had the limited role she was given well despite having eye problems from recent LASIK surgery. Dionne also fought hard to counter the charge that she had abandoned her team. In fact they had not needed and probably not wanted her to help with the editing, but that was not the way it was pitched to Trump.

The vote came out 53% for Backbone’s commercial and 47% for ASAP’s although the ACN executives voting thought both were in act excellent. Lil John won $40,000 for the United Methodist Children’s Home.

Trump focused on the team dissension and looked for the person causing it but there were multiple candidates. Trump stopped that focus on the past and asked Marlee who will not contribute in the future. She said LaToya, but Trump then asked NeNe, who answered Dionne because she left during the task. NeNe used the word “babysitting.” Ivanka stated that people needed to be in the editing room for team cohesiveness, not because they were really needed.

Trump asked Dionne who he should fire. She said he should fire her. Trump says that she is quitting and accuses her of having a chip on her shoulder. Star interrupted to say that not being able to work for her goal to support her charity was abhorrent to her. Trump ended the suspense and fired Dionne. Trump said that “Dionne looked me in the eye and challenged me to fire her and nobody gets away with that.”

NeNe got off the hook as the project manager who would normally have been fired in those circumstances.

The task of this episode was a Celebrity Art Auction and the members of Backbone andASAP creating their own works of art to sell in their own galleries. Including each designing a baseball cap for New Era. The person with the best hat design will win $25,000 for their charity. John Rich was named PM along with Marlee Matlin. George Ross and Donald Jr. were the observers.

Jose Canseco had doubts about this task and met with Donald Trump to tell him that his father battling cancer needed him to be there. Jose wanted to leave the competition to be with him. Donald Trump wished him well and said he would donate $25,000 to his charity. This made the imbalance between Backbone and ASAP only 1 team member.

Meat Loaf lost it when he thought Gary had stolen some of his art supplies, causing a major confrontation. John Rich found the supplies where Meat Loaf had misplaced then and defused it with finesse. Meat Loaf later apologized to Gary for his behavior.

As the first buyers materialized, some of the artwork went for $1000 to $50,000. As example was a Gary Busey painting of a bison for $5K. ASAP had total phone-ins of $150,000 at one point. Then Star Jones, who was manning the phone and fax line and transcribing sales into the accounting record, stated that things got scary. Three $99,000 (the largest amount that could be handled by phone/fax) sales came in together. John Rich had an autographed Gibson Apprentice guitar that sold for $470,000.

Sopranos actor Federico Cartelucci, also a serious artist himself, was sent in by Donald Trump to determine the winner of a special prize based on the best hat. Trump early in the Boardroom revealed that the winner of $25,000 for her charity AIDS Project of Los Angeles was LoToya Jackson. Backbone ended their auction by selling out their entire inventory of art.

Donald Trump played his usual games, asking the Backbone PM who were the best artists on his team. John said that Meat Loaf and Lil Jon were. A review of the Meat Loaf vs. Gary confrontation indicated that Meat Loaf lost his temper and failed to follow the dictates of anger management training. John stated that he defused the situation by reminding Meat Loaf that their goal was to pull together to raise money for charity.Others on Backbone had their opinion solicited. Mark stated that John was one fine Project Manager and human being. John had used all his Nashville connections to bring in the only big bucks for Backbone.

ASAP then got its turn in the barrel. Both Star and LaToya praised Marlee for her leadership, particularly for using her contacts to raise a huge amount of money. LaToya donated a shirt owned and autographed by her brother Michael Jackson that she had kept with her since his death. It was one of the items which sold for $99K.

The charity Marlee was playing for was a foundation in Minnesota providing hearing aids to Third World countries. John Rich’s charity was the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Trump stated that an amazing amount of money was raised, more than in any prior season of Celebrity Apprentice or regular Apprentice. He cited his own book “The Art of the Deal.” He asked John and Marlee if they were willing to forgo the right to win everything raised and allow the other PM to keep his or her share. They agreed to do this. That proved to be very generous of Marlee, whose team had raised $986K versus $627K for Backbone. Trump told her he would pitch in $14K so that she could donate an even $1 million. The total raised for those 3 charities was $1.64 million. Incredible!

Trump invited the women to stay in the Boardroom, as he needed them for something. He offered them the opportunity to allow the losing team to not have someone fired since Backbone had done so well. Marlee caucused with her team and the answer was no, go ahead and fire somebody. They felt the sting of their prior 3 consecutive losses and knew that more manpower for the men weakened ASAP’s chance of future victory.

Trump next asked John to identify Backbone’s weakest link. John said that if the criteria were money raised, which he thought it should be, then Richard Hatch raised the least money (maybe $7000 versus about $15,000 each for several others). ASAP was polled to voice their opinion on who should be fired. Hope said Richard and Star said Richard.

Trump then asked John who was the weakest link on non-money terms. John did not hesitate to nominate Gary because Gary is not a team player capable of focusing for 2 solid days at 16 hours per day. Donald Jr. Added that he listened to Gary explain to him something that should have taken seconds for over 5 minutes. Marlee jumped in to praise Gary based on the out-of-the-box thinking he brings. She said that Richard should be fired.

Trump was just playing all of them. He promptly fired Richard, who regretted that his strengths would no longer be available to his team.

It's time for one of my fearless prognostications, a bit earlier than usual but warranted by the money-raising performance results from Episode 5. I see Marlee Matlin and John Rich making it to the final 2. I think Star Jones is going a long way, maybe to #3 and Lil John to #4.

On Backbone, in spite of their wins as Project Managers neither Gary Busey nor Meat Loaf is going anywhere except elimination in some of the next 4 episodes. Hope and NeNe will join them. That leaves only LaToya and Mark McGrath not accounted for. I see them going out as #5 or #6.

I agree with Marlee as a finalist and though I hadn't thought about it, John Rich could well be in the final 2 as well. I also agree with your other fearless prognostications regarding Star Jones and Lil John.

NeNe is the Omorosa of this season. She's loud, obnoxious and annoying. Her claim to the 15 minutes of fame is her appearance on Real Housewives of Atlanta and on the late night show "Watch What Happens" on Bravo.

In a way, I think Celebrity Apprentice has jumped the shark. the focus isn't on anything but raising money and that is becoming boring. Celebrities should be able to raise money because of their celebrity, that isn't really an ability that merits the title. I also did not like Marlee sheltering Gary Busey, he isn't on her team and the men know he is a detriment which strengthens the woman and weakens the men's team.